


Don't Give Up

by bearonthecouch



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Backstory, Declarations Of Love, Established Relationship, M/M, Military School, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pre-Canon, References to Dyslexia, Studying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-08
Updated: 2018-09-08
Packaged: 2019-07-08 16:02:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15933791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bearonthecouch/pseuds/bearonthecouch
Summary: Roy is brave enough to know the regs and not care, but Roy grew up in a brothel, so his family is hardly putting the same pressure on him that Maes has to handle.





	Don't Give Up

Things Maes Hughes is good at:

  * Math. Subsets include counting cards, calculating trajectories, pattern recognition, and marching band.


  * Making friends. Convincing people to talk to him. Disarming them with a smile.


  * Sex (according to Roy Mustang)


  * Lying.



 

Things Maes Hughes is not good at:

  * Talking about his feelings


  * Sitting still for any length of time. His body is constantly moving, fidgeting;his fingers are always scrawling out his fragmented thoughts on any nearby surface, or playing with knives.


  * Silence. Boredom. Loneliness.


  * Awkward conversations with his old man, who is never disarmed by his smile.



 

“For fuck’s sake, Hughes, do you ever shut up?”

“Sorry,” Maes mutters, although he isn’t.

Roy sighs and rolls over onto his back, his open textbook on the bed next to him. “I'm trying to concentrate,” he points out.

Hughes nods, because he understands that, in the traditional sense, school is hard for Mustang. He’s crazy smart; you have to be, to be an alchemist. And he can memorize almost anything. But even still, he fails plenty of tests and is just barely skating by the academic requirements to stay at the academy. If Mustang flunks out because Maes got bored and distracted him while he was trying to study, it would be unforgivable.

“Exams are like, ninety percent over, though,” Maes sighs. “What’ve you still got?”

“History.”

“Shit.”

Maes actually _likes_ history, but the tests in that class are notoriously difficult, and if it was a struggle for him, it'll be torture for Mustang.

“I took that class last semester,” Maes says, climbing onto the bed with Mustang and the textbook. “I bet the questions haven't changed.”

Roy shakes his head. “I’d rather get kicked out for failing than for cheating.”

“You're too damn noble, Mustang,” Maes insists. But he's a little relieved. It's not like he wants to be kicked out for cheating, either.

He sits at the foot of the bed, leaning his head back against the wall. Mustang rolls over and then sits up, pressing one hand on the textbook.

“Give me that.”

Roy hands it over.

Maes flips to the front of the textbook, a map of the country on a two-page spread. Mustang does well with pictures. He’s fine with numbers. All he has to do is connect the dots.

Hughes presses his finger onto the map. “Okay. You know Amestris was founded in-”

“1550.”

“Right. And we hunkered down and were nice to our neighbors and built up our military to be the envy of all the land, for eight years, until the Battle of Riviere.” His finger circles the map, the outside edge of the nation, until he finds the border town, straddling the line between West and North.

“1558,” Roy confirms.

Maes nods.

If the military history exam was multiple choice, Mustang would probably stand a decent chance. The problem is, the grade’s heavily weighted on the essay question, which changes every semester. So you have to know about how the strategies used at the Battle of Riviere contributed to Amestris’ first win, how evolving technology has influenced the nation’s dominance in warfare, why they built a wall at Fort Briggs but nowhere else in the nation. You have to be able to defend your argument in written form. And although straying too far from the established story of Amestrian invincibility is frowned upon, the academy is looking for cadets to point out what the military did wrong and how they can do it better.

Mustang is smart, and in the oral debates in political science, his sharp insights and genuine passion make it more than obvious that he's willing to tell the military what to do better. Roy is generally quiet, sometimes to the point of being totally non-verbal, but Maes knows that his roommate needs to be around people and that he does everything he can for the people that he’s with. That kind of caring draws people to him and kindles a natural charisma. He could be one of the best officers Amestris has ever had, if he doesn't fail history.

Mustang frowns down at the map, reciting names and dates under his breath, circling a few of the larger or more critical conflicts with his finger.

“We’ve _never_ been invaded,” he muses, looking up at Hughes while he traces his fingernail across the line separating Amestris from Aurego. “Doesn't that seem weird?”

“Strength Through Unity, Mustang.”

“Aurego’s army is just as big as ours. And Drachma…”

“Drachma pushes us all the time.”

“But they never get far.”

“Because there's a huge fucking wall in their way.”

“I guess.” Amestris is so tiny though. Smaller by half than any of the surrounding nations except Creta. And it was even smaller than that, in 1550. Every border war they've ever fought has resulted in expansion. No one’s that lucky, right?

Maes shuts the book and starts firing off whatever questions he can remember from the last term’s test. Because helping a friend study is not the same as cheating, and anyway, it's not like he remembers a whole lot. He didn't set out to memorize the exam or anything. And the names, dates, and places are easily confusable, after a while. Was it after Wellesley or Fiske that the military first started recruiting alchemists?

Roy knows the answers to most of the questions, anyway. “Don't worry, Mustang, you’ll do fine. You always do.”

“My GPA might disagree.”

“You're still here, aren't you?”

Maes pushes the textbook off the bed, grinning as it slams against the cold concrete floor.

“What the fuck, Hughes?”

“You’ve studied enough.”

Roy sighs, rubbing at the back of his neck. He knows Maes is probably right. His problem isn't knowing the answers, anyway. It’s just that what he knows gets lost in his inability to figure out how to write it down. His handwriting is either illegible or picture perfect because he takes the time to think about the shape of each letter and each word. His teachers appreciate it when he does that, but it takes up so much of his time and effort that he loses track of what he's trying to say. And he never, ever finishes a timed test. Never once, since he was six years old. Tomorrow won't be any different. He just has to hope his grades in chemistry and calculus can tilt the final equation in his favor.

Maes takes Roy’s wrist, pulling his arm away from the back of his neck, and he kisses the spot Roy had been rubbing. Mustang squirms a little, and Hughes wraps his other arm around Roy’s body, hugging him close to his chest. Roy settles against him, letting his eyes slip closed as Maes’ free hand rubs over his knee. The gentle pressure of the touch feels warm even through the heavy fabric of his uniform pants.

Mustang drives Maes wild, but he knows the younger boy likes to cuddle as much or more than he likes to be fucked. And as much as he’d never have anticipated it, Maes is okay with cuddling, too, if it's with Roy.

“Sweet dreams, Mustang,” Hughes says softly, playing with Roy’s hair and massaging his temple as he sprawls out on the bed.

Mustang’s asleep in five minutes. Despite three years in military school, he hasn’t yet developed the soldier’s need to sleep light and paranoid. Hughes could probably extricate himself without waking him. Instead, he settles in, shifting to lay on his side with his back against the wall and his arm draped protectively over his roommate. Roy mumbles and whines in his sleep, but Maes kisses his arm and cradles his hip, and he lapses into silence.

The next morning, Mustang’s awake before Hughes, for possibly the first time ever. Maes stirs as soon as Roy starts moving. “Morning,” he mumbles.

Roy grins. He picks up Maes’ glasses from the bedside table where he’d set them the previous night, and hands them over. Hughes slides them onto his face and then sits up. The two of them dress for PT, which has gotten easier with time and is now only strenuous instead of murderous.

Then, quick showers that are just this side of icy, thank god it's May, and twenty minutes or so to shovel down reconstituted eggs, toast, bacon, and bitter coffee.

The exam block starts at 0800. Maes fist bumps Roy with a huge smile on his face, knowing better than to hug him in public. Mustang rolls his eyes, but Maes’ confidence really is contagious.

He walks into the classroom still pretty sure he’s going to fail, but willing to believe that it won't be the end of his world. He's used to it, anyway. He tries to set up his course list so that his strengths can outweigh his deficits.

Hughes has a statistics test, which he sails through. And then it's noon and the school year is over.

Mustang walks with him to the edge of campus, and they talk a little bit about going home. Roy repeats his annual invitation for Maes to come over to his aunt’s place whenever, and as he always does, Maes nods but knows he won’t, because when he's home he turns into a version of himself that he doesn't like, the liar who likes girls and cares about what his father thinks. He’ll share cigarettes with old classmates he’s known since primary school, who will laugh their asses off about the time he'd set off fireworks in the principal’s office but would hate him if they knew that he’s fallen in love with Roy Mustang. He’ll give the expected answers to questions about what the academy is like, the same way he has every year, saying that his roommate is cool and saying nothing else about him. He’ll dumb himself down, never mentioning differential equations or his test scores.

Maes hates the summer. He’ll turn another year older on July 23rd and debate taking Roy up on his standing offer to come over and celebrate, but instead he’ll have dinner with his parents while his mom almost cries about how her son has grown into such a fine man and his dad takes him aside after dinner to give advice about how to survive his future battlefields. Maes’ father had his leg ripped into by a shrapnel shell in the war he was drafted into, and he’s walked with a pronounced limp since before Maes was born, and was lucky not to lose the limb entirely. He has this stupid idea that being a commissioned officer means Maes can hold onto the prestige of fighting for his country without the danger. Maybe he's right. Maes is on the intelligence track, and those people usually sit behind a desk, analyzing casualty counts instead of participating in them.

So Maes drinks bourbon with his old man and makes non-committal noises when the conversation steers, as it _always_ does, toward finding him some nice girl who’ll be a good army wife. Maes thinks about his own mother, whose life seems unbearably bland from his perspective and always has, and he has to resist the very strong urge to cringe.

He excuses himself at the earliest possible opportunity, lays on his too-comfortable bed staring up at the ceiling until it's actually late enough to fall asleep.

He spends the month between his birthday and the start of term practicing trumpet, helping his mom in the kitchen, watching the high schoolers practicing football, and missing Mustang.

Roy shows up at the last possible second, as he always does, and Hughes pushes him against the wall and crushes him with kisses for the five minutes they have before they have to report for dinner, and the welcome back speech/lecture: “future of the nation, represent yourself according to the utmost standards, the uniform is a privilege, blah blah blah.” Maes tunes out most of it and kicks Mustang under the table at certain words, their personal version of a drinking game when no alcohol is available.

“So,” Roy starts, that night when they're back in their room. “It's our last year, huh.”

“Guess you didn't fail out after all.”

“You knew I wasn't going to.”

And then they have sex, and it's fucking amazing after so long without, and Maes thinks “It's the last year and I have to make it count.” He's never let himself think past the academy, because out there in the real world there are expectations. He knows how to be careful: getting caught with Mustang would mean expulsion even here. But expulsion at least doesn't have the word “dishonorable” attached to it. Roy is brave enough to know the regs and not care, but Roy grew up in a brothel, so his family is hardly putting the same pressure on him that Maes has to handle.

“Y’okay?” Mustang asks. He's sitting on the edge of Maes’ bunk in his boxers, frowning down at him with obvious concern. Maes rolls over onto his back and meets Roy’s eyes.

“Yeah, fine,” he says. And he does mean it. He grins at Roy and Roy smiles back, and Maes’ heart doesn’t even belong to him anymore. There is no way he can pretend this is just a convenient fling, no way he can let go of Roy. Fuck the consequences. He’ll make it work.

“What’re you thinking about?”

“I love you.”

“Fuck, Hughes, you're such a sap.”

“You love it.”

Mustang nods. He's missed this too.

He kisses Maes, soft and slow, until he’s groaning with the release of all the pressure he's had bottled up since May.

They lace their fingers together and they sleep skin to skin in the August heat, and it’s pretty damn close to perfect.

 

Things Roy Mustang is good at:

  * Poker. Even against his card-counting roommate. He knows how to read people’s tells, and it took a while to figure out Maes’ but now that he knows what they are, he can’t unsee them.


  * Alchemy. It’s hard to judge against his teacher’s impossible standards, but according to the comments at his interview to get into the academy, he’s _very good_ as compared to most other military alchemists and especially as compared to anyone his age.


  * Drinking


  * Noticing things no one wants him to notice.



 

Things Roy Mustang is not good at:

  * Reading. Writing. Essay questions.


  * Guns. His marksmanship is decent after three years of practice, but he still hates the sound. Maes has noticed his hesitation and tries to cover for him, but Maes can’t protect him from the torment of the drill sergeants who scream at and insult and punish him until he’s just so fucking exhausted and angry that he’ll shoot at whatever they want.


  * Going for more than half a day without someone (preferably Maes) touching him. He needs the warmth of a hug, a body pressed up against his to help him sleep, the comfort of a hand to hold when he’s uncertain or afraid. He even studies better when he’s got someone massaging away the tension in his neck and shoulders. When Maes isn’t around, he can find other release, but it never lasts for long.


  * Giving up.  



 


End file.
